Created to Fall: The Common Trait of All Empires

Feb. 25, 2008
Every time our Terrorist Threat Advisory Level increases our national bank account dips into the negative. Thank God the federal government does not have to balance their check book the way we have to.

The night of September 11th, 2001, I did not sleep well. I don't think anybody did, especially those of us in public safety. Fear of the unknown seemed to be the thought of the day, or days thereafter. Every expert on CNN for months afterward predicted the emergence of "sleeper terrorist cells" that had secretly amassed WMD and were intent on unleashing them against our citizenry. I had just completed a patrol shift with four hours over-time, because I was assigned to guard a facility that was deemed "essential" although no actionable intelligence existed indicating the building was ever a target by anyone other than our local purse snatcher. It took me one shift to realize that this knee jerk reaction, that policing is well known for, would not last for long. It simply didn't make any sense. While I was guarding a building, my buddy was sitting in cruiser watching a water tower in the middle of no-where. Police leadership, in my experience, was doing what they were good at whenever there is a crisis; something I call the principle of "we've got to do something even if it's wrong.". An emergency occurs, 911 call centers get swamped and cops massively deploy everywhere without focus. We only succeed in accumulating huge amounts of overtime and snarling up traffic. Does this really help our community? Didn't the Russians do this? Russians? What?! Keep reading...

We did it first.

One of the reasons why the "West", otherwise known as NATO powers, won the Cold War against WARSAW Pact Forces, i.e., former Soviet Union and her allies, is because we simply out spent them in the trillions. The strategy, although overtly militaristic, was actually economically based. The Soviets fell victim to the "thermodynamic law of entrophy", meaning more effort was being spent on maintaining their control, status quo, instead of expanding. Collapse came from within. The asymmetry of strategy applied to defeating the WARSAW Pact wasn't a new concept. Simply put, find your opponents weaknesses and exploit them, or in the words of Sun Tzu:

"Therefore one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful. Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful."
Now it's being done to us.

Every time our Terrorist Threat Advisory Level increases our national bank account dips into the negative. Thank God the federal government does not have to balance their check book the way we have to. However, the bad news is that state and local government must pass a balanced budget and when massive agencies like NYPD had to increase their overtime spending by 100% (or $436.7 Million per year FY03-05) to deal with counter-terrorism someone has to bail them out. The Fed's claim they can't do it. You do the math; X amount of dollars pumped into our government budgets via taxation, and Y is spent. Ideally, as a municipal manager, you want to break even or at best, have a little left over in reserve for that "rainy day fund." Massive increases for unbudgeted intangibles will put you in the red. Other city and state programs get cut to help offset the shortfall. The vicious cycle continues.

Problematically, NYPD isn't alone. Police agencies are expensive to operate normally, but when you add terrorism into the mix the cost of doing business is killing us as a nation. Do you see any similarities between the former Soviet Union, especially during period of the late 1970s to early 1990s, and us today? Our nation is bleeding to death financially; blood flowing thickly green and red. Do you think Al Quada, Hezbolla, or the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine (among many others listed by the State Department) read the "Art of War"? All a terrorist organization has to do through disinformation is lead us to believe that homicide bombers wearing explosive backpacks are headed toward our metro-transit system and thousands of law-abiding people are displaced while thousands of cops are deployed costing millions of dollars. The true economic impact is probably never known. People are afraid, they don't go to work. Businesses aren't as productive, revenue is lost, and again, the vicious cycle continues. What about the bomb with legs? He or she never showed up. Instead they watched our response unfold on television or on the web from half way across the world. I fear that we are becoming who we once dreaded. In the post-9/11 world are we headed toward becoming the former Soviet Union? Spending copious amounts of cash in order to just maintain equilibrium?

How do we stop it?

The final analysis, I would argue, will show that the cause of our fate differed from that of the former Soviet Union. The United States was not, nor ever will be, a homogenous population. The DNA of our country continuously evolves and is comprised of over 190 different world-wide nationalities. Truly, we are a global melting pot, and as the leader of the world we draw our strengths from diversification. The good news is this: Our history. Didn't our country spawn Tom Brokaws "The Greatest Generation" to rise up out of the Great Depression and defeat the Axis Powers of WW2? What happened when the "sleeping giant" that was feared by Japanese Fleet Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku awoke? The islands of Japan become property of the U.S. Military in 1945, that's what happened. The bad news is this: Follow through. The pivotal difference between the USA then and the USA now is national unity that drives public policy. We don't have it today. As I write this, polls in advance of political elections reveal that the average American is more concerned with the economy and immigration reform than terrorism, which is ranked third. As stated in Abraham Maslows "Hierarchy of Needs" theory over 60 years ago, without security you've got nothing. Will the USA join the long list of empires that crumbled and were lost to history? Only time will tell.

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